Blog Articles

When it comes to running an MSP business, it’s easy to think the key to success is all about technology. However, it’s just as much about communication. Continue reading

Most of your clients and even most of your tech staffers won’t see any difference between a service desk and a help desk. In fact, many, if not all, MSPs themselves tend to not notice the difference between these concepts. However, from the processual and operational points of view, a service desk and a help desk are indeed different concepts. Continue reading

Imagine that you employed the best tier-two staffer in the world. This person knows just about everything about your clients, can draw a network map for any of them with their eyes closed, standing on one leg in a dark room. And this perfect T2 is supportive – they will gladly teach any T1 you send them and share and spread their knowledge throughout your whole team. Now, let’s imagine the darkest of days, the day when this T2 leaves you, for whatever reason. Continue reading

MSPs don’t know everything about every piece of technology, solution, or cyberthreat. There’s just so much to know. It’s impossible to know how to fix every problem that arises. IT infrastructures are complex. If you find yourself researching problems, you’re not alone. But when you do, do you charge your clients for your time? Continue reading

When acquiring a new client, there are always ups and downs. There’s usually that initial phase of excitement and exhilaration, where your confidence as a salesperson is at a high. Then, what follows is the realization of having to deliver on your promises, a stressful moment for any business owner. Continue reading

If you ask any other managed services provider about the most effective way of earning clients, you will most probably hear about referrals. However, even the happiest of your customers won't always refer your exceptional services to their business connections. But why? Continue reading

It’s something every business owner struggles with: How do I leverage time management to effectively grow my business without working 80- to 90-hour weeks?

This is especially a challenge for managed service provider (MSP) business owners, who may be working with small business clients with significant IT needs or who may only have a small staff (or even just themselves) as they look to grow their business.

However, it’s important for every MSP business owner to implement practices early and often that improve their time-management skills. No matter how you slice it, there are only 24 hours in a day and seven days a week.

Consciously taking steps to maximize how those hours are spent will lead not only to a more efficient business but also to less burnout and an overall healthier work-life balance.

Further reading Are You A One-Man Shop? Here’s How To Avoid Burnout

Set Priorities

According to Dr. Donald Wetmore of The Productivity Institute, only 20 percent of the average person’s workday is spent on “crucial” or “important tasks,” with the remainder spent on items with little to no value. As an MSP business owner, you can easily find yourself juggling tech work with the many administrative tasks that come with running a business, such as office management, financials, taxes, insurance, scheduling, sales, and planning. In an industry like managed services or IT, where there's always more to do, it's important to prioritize those crucial tasks that directly grow the business and support clients before everything else.

What those priorities look like for each business may be different. Once you've determined what those top priorities are for your specific MSP, one tactic that can help to ensure the focus stays on those items is time-blocking. Setting aside specific days or times for tasks like invoicing, sales and quoting, and planning or review (if those are your chosen priorities) ensures that these tasks get completed and puts the priority on the items that are necessary in order to move the business forward.

 

Further reading Building a Successful MSP Business

Hire Where Possible

It’s always nerve-racking for any business owner to make their first hire but, as the business grows, it may be inevitable to hire additional tech talent or even an office manager to help with administrative tasks and to schedule all work. By delegating some of these tasks, you, as the boss, are freed up to focus on more advanced tech work, relationship management, and business management.

To make hiring possible, it’s also important to charge your clients what you’re worth. Many new MSP business owners may fall into the trap of undercharging clients for the value of their work, especially if they're small businesses. By setting the standard for pricing and the value you provide, you are setting yourself up for the opportunity to grow and support clients for the long haul.
Further reading Hiring New Employees: 6 Essential Steps for MSPs

Invest in Automation

Finally, choosing a strong remote monitoring and management (RMM) or professional services automation (PSA) tool can help automate simple or repetitive IT or client management tasks. That way, you can focus time on more strategic tasks, like strategy, advanced tech needs, or client relationship management.

Further reading Why Automation Is Important for MSPs in 2024

Establishing strong time-management practices sooner rather than later will go a long way in the earliest stages of your MSP business. However, it’s never too late to start!

Taking small steps every day to prioritize and improve your time management will be an evolving practice that will not only help to grow your business over time but also ensure that it's done in a sustainable way.

When an MSP grows and becomes more mature, its owners eventually recognize the need for sales and marketing operations. And yet, many still overlook branding. Although not essential and, for sure, not the first thing to build your MSP around, recognizable branding, such as the vision and the mission statement, the elements of design embedded into various details of your website, office interior, and clothes might become a small, yet visibly shining gem that will allow you to stand out from the crowd even more. Continue reading

Effective cybersecurity involves a combination of robust automated processes and alert, well-trained employees. This means that you have to deliver cybersecurity training which equips employees to do their job safely, but doesn’t overload them. With that in mind, here are eight dos and don’ts for creating a cybersecurity training program. Continue reading

Choosing the right new hire is one of the most important decisions a company can make, as it builds the technical skills of the organization and can also drastically affect its culture. Ensuring you make the best hire for your MSP business starts with asking the right interview questions. Continue reading

While managed service providers continue to embrace multi-channel lead generation and marketing, it turns out they are not particularly keen on cold calling.

According to a Barracuda MSP survey, only 22% stated that they are currently leveraging cold calling as part of their larger marketing framework. And while some companies are seemingly indifferent to this whole strategy, an overwhelming 43% are not even considering it. They won’t be joining the cold-calling bandwagon anytime soon.

Well, you could argue that cold calling isn’t exactly the easiest method of prospecting. Or maybe MSPs are ignoring it because they have yet to invest in telemarketers.
Fair enough. But then again, it just so happens that they are missing out big time.

Research has proven that cold calling is now incredibly rewarding, and capable of generating leads more effectively than ever. Although it takes about 18 dials to get through to a buyer, all that effort ultimately pays off quite handsomely.

Making the connection before your prospects reach out to another MSP boosts your sales chances by 56%. And for the few that manage to beat their competitors as the first vendors to get in touch with the corporate decision-makers, the average conversion ratio is 74%.

So, whichever way you look at it, cold calling is one prospecting strategy you might not want to leave out of your MSP sales plan.

Getting Started With MSP Cold Calling

As you set up a telemarketing team and develop your cold-calling pitches, remember to pay special attention to where the entire process starts. Your conversion odds, at the end of the day, depend significantly on the origin, type, and quality of the prospects.

And so, to help you score with the best possible leads, here are eight high-quality sources you might want to prioritize as you get started with MSP cold calling:

Where to Hunt for Cold-Calling Prospects: 8 Top Lead Sources for MSP Businesses

#1 Search Engine

Let’s start with the largest business registry on the web: Google.
A simple Google search is enough to identify a couple of solid prospects in your target industry. The trick here is to include the target industry and local zip code in the search keywords.

You could, for instance, run a search on “Elementary Schools 206700”. Google will subsequently generate a list of the elementary schools in the area.

#2 Local Chamber of Commerce

Another great source of prospects once you’ve established your target industry is the local chamber of commerce.

Simply prequalify your ideal prospects based on business category and size, then go ahead and search for them in the relevant chamber of commerce.

For the best possible outcome, however, consider joining the club. This will give you the opportunity to mingle, connect, and network with the candidates.

#3 LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a gold mine for professional networks. It’s the one social site where you can randomly reach out to other businesses and executives in your industry.
So, as you gradually expand your LinkedIn connections, you might want to keep an eye out for new leads. The platform itself will even try to offer suggestions on relevant prospects you could add to your professional circle.
Further reading Sell Your Managed Services Effectively with LinkedIn

#4 Global Database

Global Database facilitates B2B lead generation and networking through its specialized business directory. Once you register and log into your account, you get the chance to identify potential lead generation opportunities, as well as businesses you could work with.

The search tool here is even capable of filtering contacts based on multiple parameters, such as nationality, industry, revenue, company size, etc.

In the end, Global Database’s directory will give you all the information you need for cold calling. You’ll have the location, social links, histories, and contact details of not only the target companies but also their corresponding executives.

#5 Market Intelligence Tools and Mailing List Platforms

If you’re looking to build high-quality, hyper-targeted prospect lists, you can go ahead and sample insights from various market intelligence tools and mailing list platforms.

InsideView, for instance, provides an AI-driven lead-targeting tool that qualifies prospects according to custom criteria, such as business connections, demographics, firmographics, location, industry, etc.

ZoomInfo, on the other hand, comes with a solid B2B contact database that works hand-in-hand with its automated intelligence and outreach tools.

Additionally, you could check out DatabaseUSA and InfoUSA. They both offer email list databases that feature most of the prominent businesses in the US.

#6 Local Business Library

Local business libraries can provide the small details you won’t find on national or global business listing sites. While general B2B databases focus on prominent companies, your local business library maintains a more comprehensive index of entities in your area.

Therefore, you can use it to find the smaller prospects you might have missed on other contact databases. A proper library should provide their accompanying location details, as well as email addresses, and telephone numbers.

#7 Local Government Database

Government regulatory agencies ordinarily keep updated registers of all the companies, corporate bodies, and professional organizations that fall within their jurisdiction.

If you’re trying to reach out to small businesses in Texas, for example, you can get a list of all the registered corporations from the Texas Secretary of State.

#8 Professional Registration Groups

Apart from local government agencies, companies are likely to register with professional associations in their industries. Law firms join legal groups, public companies enroll with stock exchange markets, while building contractors tend to join construction licensing authorities.

Such sources, therefore, are particularly suitable when it comes to professional firms and agencies. The registration rolls will always publish, at the very least, each member’s physical address, email, and phone number.

Bonus: Lead Generation Software

All the eight sources we’ve explored so far are pretty reliable. But, let’s face it -- manually searching through all of them can be frustratingly tiresome.

 

So, while you repeatedly hunt for prospects on the platforms, it would also be a good idea to supplement your efforts with specialized lead-generation software.

The kicker, however, is that choosing a suitable one could take time. For starters, the web alone offers MSPs an overwhelming range of solutions -- from onsite targeting tools to automated omnichannel platforms that combine lead generation with email marketing, CRM, and social media marketing.

All in all, though, these two extraordinary options have proven to be outstanding in MSP prospecting:

• Hunter: Hunter is particularly handy in finding your leads’ email addresses. The tool itself comes in the form of a browser extension for Google Chrome. It proceeds to find all the potential email addresses associated with each individual domain, after which it publishes all the info in a Google spreadsheet.
• Leadfeeder: Leadfeeder, on the other hand, gives you the power to qualify and hunt down prospects after they visit your site. It keeps tabs on each visitor’s surfing behaviors, pages of interest, plus much more. Then, using a special tracking script, it goes ahead and establishes the respective companies that the visitors work for. What’s more, you even get the contact details of other company employees.

Further reading Hunters vs. Farmers: Guide to MSP Sales Personas

Conclusion

With these business resources and tools, you can now begin identifying and qualifying the most promising leads.

Don’t rush through all this, though. Take your time to gather as much information as possible, and then use the insights to develop impactful cold-calling scripts. The content should resonate well with your audiences.